Posts tagged with RUSSIA

The eponymous heroine of Gaetano Donizetti’s opera “Lucrezia Borgia” had just died, and the final notes of music had barely faded into the November night when hundreds of workers began to transform New York City’s Academy of Music. Less than 24 hours later, the 4,000-seat entertainment emporium — an opera house, theater, and meeting and exposition hall, all under one roof — was to host the social event of the 1863 season. The city’s elite had quickly snapped up 2,000 tickets for the “Soirée Russe”: a grand ball for the officers of the Russian fleet at anchor in New York.

A rapturous description of the preparations in The New York Times on Nov. 5, the morning of the ball, promised that the visiting Russian naval officers would enjoy “their first opportunity of seeing society in New-York in all its full regalia, style and splendor.” Guests would begin arriving at the 14th Street entrance to the Academy at 9 p.m., from where they would be conducted into the ballroom for dancing scheduled to begin at 10:30. As the Times reported, “There will be two splendid Bands,” one “for the Promenade and operatic music,” the other “for the dancing.” Despite a newly constructed dance floor more than 850 square yards in size, one reporter in attendance later noted, “We will call it a dance out of respect to conventional and popular prejudice. In truth it was a very wonderful and indescribable phantasmagoria of humanity” that “moved a little this way, a little that, but not a dance.” Read more…

We appear to be on the brink of a nation-state baby boom. These new countries will not be the product of a single political change or conflict, as was the post-Soviet proliferation, nor will they be confined to a specific region. If anything, they are linked by a single, undeniable fact: history chews up borders with the same purposeless determination that geology does, as seaside villas slide off eroding coastal cliffs. Here is an interactive map of what could become the world’s newest international borders.

Earlier this month, Catherine Ashton, the European Union high representative for foreign affairs [1], applauded the resumption of freight rail traffic through eastern Moldova as “a crucial step forward for restoring confidence between the sides to the Transnistrian issue.” For many this may have been the first time they became aware of something called the “Transnistrian issue,” let alone Transnistria itself [2].

You’ll find Moldova on a map — it’s right there, a pork shoulder of land between Romania and Ukraine — but not Transnistria, an unrecognized breakaway republic in the east of Moldova. And if Transnistria were on a map, it would be easy to mistake it for a misprint, a river inked too wide (to continue the porcine metaphor, if Moldova is a pork shoulder, Transnistria is a sliver of bacon). Located mainly on the eastern bank of the Dniester [3], Transnistria stretches for about 250 miles north to south, averaging no more than 15 miles across. It thus patently lacks what military experts call ‘strategic depth’ — the ability to retreat without automatically suffering defeat. Read more…

Here’s a bit of insight into the mind of a budding map-head. While my grade-school geography teacher attempted to stuff our heads with tables on the average rainfall in the Amazon and graphs on the relevance of the Donbas [1] for the Soviet economy, I kept staring at the page showing East Asia, wondering: Does Russia share a border with North Korea, or does China touch the sea?

The map stubbornly refused to yield enough detail for an answer. The line that defined China’s borders with North Korea and Russia was inked too thickly to determine whether there was a Chinese-Russian-North Korean tripoint on land (but very close to shore), or a Chinese (but very narrow) beachfront on the Sea of Japan [2]. Both options seemed bizarre, yet either would have obvious geopolitical implications: in the former case, Russia would have unimpeded traffic with North Korea; in the latter, China would have direct access to a strategic body of water. Read more…

Where is Europe? You might as well ask: What is Europe? For it is a concept as well as a continent, and the borders of both oscillate wildly. For the ancient Persians, it was that small stepping stone separating them from Greece. In the Middle Ages, it became virtually synonymous with Christendom. A relatively recent and generally unaccepted theory sees Europe spanning half the globe, from Iceland to the Bering Strait, nearly touching Alaska.

Take the most common present-day usage of the term “Europe,” shorthand for (and synonymous with) the European Union. The external borders of this supranational project are well-defined, and in some cases well-defended. But they remain movable, having consistently shifted outward over the last half century. From a core of six founding members in the continent’s west [1], this “Europe” has expanded to comprise 27 states, as far east as Cyprus. Read more…

Frederick Douglass spent much of his life speaking about the hardships of slavery — but even he, at times, realized that words were not enough. Instead, he turned to music: “The mere hearing of [slave] songs,” he said, revealed the “physical cruelties of the slave system; for the heart has no language like song.” Today, spirituals like “Go Down, Moses” and “God’s Going to Trouble the Water” continue to convey American slaves’ anguish, frustration and hope.

Less familiar to Americans, however, is the music of Russia’s serfs, who were emancipated in 1861, on the eve of President Lincoln’s inauguration. Although the slaves and serfs were separated by vast distances and significant historical experiences, each group endured years of bondage by turning to song. Likening the songs of Russian serfs to those of American slaves, early 20th-century actor and slave descendent Paul Robeson observed that both groups had “an instinctive flair for music … [a] faculty born in sorrow.” But their musical traditions have striking differences, too — differences that help us understand the contrasts between the two systems. Read more…

Four thousand miles from where President-elect Abraham Lincoln was counting down the final hours before his inauguration, the leader of a very different nation prepared for the most momentous day of his reign. Czar Alexander II rose before dawn and, dressed in his favorite cherry-red dressing gown, stood contemplatively by the window, watching the pale light grow in the square outside the Winter Palace. This morning he would set 23 million of his subjects free.

Library of CongressAlexander II of Russia in an 1871 engraving after a portrait by the American artist Alonzo Chappel. Chappel also painted several well known images of Lincoln.

The tall, bewhiskered Russian emperor differed in many respects from the tall, bewhiskered Illinois lawyer. He had been born not into frontier obscurity, but amid the salutes of cannons and the festive tolling of the Kremlin’s bells. The two men would never meet, although they would exchange a number of letters, which they would sign “Your good friend, Alexander” and “Your good friend, A. Lincoln.”

Yet when Alexander signed his emancipation decree on the eve of Lincoln’s inauguration, 150 years ago today, the coincidence of timing hinted at deeper connections. In fact, the czar’s liberation of Russia’s serfs may even have lent momentum to the forces that would soon liberate America’s slaves. Read more…

There are six living secretaries of state from Republican administrations, and every one of them — from
Henry Kissinger through
Condoleezza Rice — endorses the New Start arms control treaty with Russia. Yet, as of this writing, the treaty is far from assured of support from even the one in four Republican senators needed for ratification.

Why the divergence between the Republican Party’s foreign policy brain trust and its legislators? Hoping to find out, I spent part of the past weekend watching C-Span, notably the impassioned utterances of
Jon Kyl of Arizona, the leading treaty opponent. On Sunday, there was a stretch of action that may highlight some differences between the Kyls and Kissingers of the world.

Informed Comment: In an interview yesterday, Vice President Joe Biden said that Israel is a “sovereign nation” and “can determine for itself” how best to protect itself “relative to Iran.” Juan Cole says that “what Biden was really saying is that the Obama administration intends to engage Iran diplomatically, and that if anyone wants Iran attacked they will have to do it themselves.”

This is not a green light to the Israelis, who hardly need one. It is a tough message to the right wing of the Israel lobbies that the Obama administration is not going to launch any hostilities with Iran, even after the hard line power grab of three weeks ago.

Oh, and the statement may serve as a reminder to a recalcitrant Iran of what might happen to Tehran if it refuses to negotiate in good faith over its nuclear enrichment program. (By the way, that there is no good evidence that Iran is working on a nuclear warhead, and that its current technological capacity is too limited for it to dream of such a thing any time soon, was again underlined by outgoing International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohammad Elbaradei.)

Independent: Rupert Cornwell says the “thorniest” problem on the agenda for Obama’s trip to Moscow is “Nato enlargement.”

A topmost priority of the Putin/Medvedev regime is to re-establish de facto Russian hegemony over the former states of the Soviet Union. Hence the Kremlin’s constant pressure on Ukraine, and its military action last year against Georgia. Russia wants an implicit but cast-iron acknowledgement that neither country will join Nato. The US refuses to give one. As a result, Georgia remains an ever-perilous flashpoint, that could undo at a stroke every effort for a “reset” in relations between Washington and Moscow.

Some people in [the U.S.] government believe that the Russians think this is their moment to exploit Obama’s interests in a successful summit and in nuclear arms control agreements that will help him to show that his aspirations for a nuclear-free world was a reality. The Americans’ approach to this summit is actually a little more hard boiled. They’re not prepared to make a lot of concessions merely to reach an agreement on START I. What we’re going to see is a little bit of [brinkmanship] in the last few days before the summit, and at the summit itself. The Americans are going to say to the Russians, “we’re prepared to walk away.” We’ll see who blinks first.

The Field: Writing about Honduras, Al Giordano says that “one cannot overstate the extent to which [Roberto] Micheletti lost grip and traction [Sunday] in his quest to remain in power.”

After a week of threatening the criminal charges against [Manuel] Zelaya (in effect, gambling that Zelaya would chicken out), he won the most Pyrrhic of battles today when he ordered soldiers and vehicles out on the runway of Toncontin International Airport to keep his “most wanted criminal” from landing. If his coup regime’s charges were so iron-clad, why not just let Zelaya land and drag him off to jail? He proved all of his schtick a lie, today.

Caracas Chronicles: Blogger Quico mourns the killing of a “19-year-old anti-government demonstrator shot dead by soldiers” in Tegucigalpa, and says “Let’s face it, those of us who reject Chávez’s vision of caudillismo-cum-democratic-legitimacy really could’ve used a win in Honduras this week.

Any such hope has now died, alongside Isis Murillo. Having started off with a weak but not impossible hand, Micheletti’s government has now completely relinquished any residual claim on the conscience of the hemisphere’s real democrats.

Because it’s simple, really. Democrats don’t order soldiers to fire into unarmed demonstrations. They just don’t.

It’s not the events in Iran, the U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraqi cities or efforts to relaunch Arab-Israeli peace talks. No, the development that could change history for the better is taking place quietly in Turkey: the gradual control of the military by the elected civilian government.

Specifically, it is the discussion among leading political parties in Turkey’s parliament to amend the constitution to allow the trials of military officers who carried out coups that toppled elected civilian governments in the recent past.

Washington Post: Ezra Klein says, “I am with the people, not the critics. ‘Transformers 2’ is a fun summer blockbuster.”

But wow, is it racist. Much of the movie’s comic relief comes from a pair of Autobot twins named Mudflap and Skids. They look like monkeys. One has a gold tooth and satellite ears. The dialect is a parody of ebonics with words lifted from gangster rap, complete with frequent threats to “bust a cap” in this or that character. At one point, they’re asked to read a symbol. “We don’t much like reading,” they say. They’re not Autobots. They’re Minstrelbots. As Ty Burr smartly said, “it’s the first known example of robot blackface.”

[I]n a carefully calculated campaign, operatives and allies of the Obama administration are seeking to divert attention toward radio host Rush Limbaugh, and away from a debate about our alternative solutions on the economy and the irresponsible spending binge they are presiding over.

While some conservative bloggers plunge into depths of despair that Rush Limbaugh gave a speech at CPAC not up to their standards and the White House congratulates itself over its supposed cleverness in elevating Rush, can we all take a deep breath please? Barack Obama and the Democrats have the initiative. Until such time as their policies are perceived to have failed, it doesn’t matter too much what Republicans do.